Merge (2018)
This will be my first and only post about the 2018 version of Record Store Day. I didn't even buy this at my local record store as they didn't have a copy of it by the time I had arrived. I own this record thanks to the generosity of my friend Charles. So, thank you Charles, I really appreciate it. In a nutshell, Record Store Day pretty much sucks now. What was once a fun event that I looked forward to every year has turned into something I have almost zero interest in.
It's not because of some ethical statement of major labels taking it over, or indies being pushed out. I'm also really glad that there is something driving people to record stores for at least the one day of the year, so that's not a bad thing either. To me, the bad thing is that almost all of the releases labels decide to put out pretty much universally suck. This Superchunk 7" and a Rascals 4xLP that I decided was too expensive to buy were the only things I had any interest in whatsoever.
Even this 7" isn't particularly enthralling. Of course I love Superchunk and of course I needed to buy this 7" no matter what was on it to keep my Superchunk 7" collection complete. But both are acoustic versions of songs from the latest Superchunk LP. They're slower and played with an acoustic guitar, but there's nothing all that interesting going on. A fun novelty, but nothing I would listen to that often. Again, needed for completist purposes, but not something I would recommend if you don't care about that sort of thing. I do care, so thanks again to Charles for picking this up for me.
